


Agent Down

by GreenVelvetCurtains



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Regret in unprofessional, Road Trip, reconcilliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenVelvetCurtains/pseuds/GreenVelvetCurtains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'd ordered the shot that ended his life, then labelled him an exemplar of British fortitude in death. Appalling! Collection of Skyfall one-shots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Take the Bloody Sot

'Take the bloody shot!' had been M's - dare he think of it as a premature ejaculation? He would, Bond decided, since there really wasn't any better term for it. Given just a little more time he would have had the bastard and the job done. Instead, moments after the order sounded in his earpiece he felt the sear of the bullet.

God dammit!

The echo of the weapon discharging followed after.

The force of the shot flung him backwards, off balance. His equilibrium compromised, his mind shocked and body screaming in outrage, there was nothing left to do. For a split second, without the train beneath his feet it seemed like he was floating, flying even. Then the rush of wind told him he was in free-fall.

'Agent down.'

The voice sounded flat, slightly tremulous in Bond's ear. She'd made a mistake that couldn't be rectified.

No further communication followed. They were sitting, likely shocked into silence in their safe, comfortable offices in MI6 headquarters, London. He was hundreds of miles away, mid-plunge into a ravine following a tussle on the roof of a train. Shot by a fellow agent. To all intents and purposes, dead.

Except that he wasn't dead. He might well be so in the very near future with the earth rushing up to meet him at alarming speed, but for the time being he was still alive. And he was damned well furious!

His mission into Turkey to retrieve the stolen list had turned out to be just that, a turkey. Bond hated irony.

His fellow agent had simply followed an order. He shouldn't really berate her for that, but he was going to do it anyway. What better to do while falling to your death than apportion culpability on the long way down.

B he should call her, since they'd not been formally introduced. B for bitch. Or should that be babe? F for failure. L for lousy bloody markswoman who should never have been let loose to compromise his mission. Or maybe he should be grateful she wasn't a better shot. She might have actually managed to kill him instead.

The truth was that M's order hurt more than the hit did. More than he knew the landing would. Impacting water from any great height was as bad as hitting concrete, though what exactly constituted too high a drop he didn't know. Bond willed his injured body to relax. It was how drunks survived falls from party balconies with a minimum of damage. Tensing up could prove fatal. His shrapnel riddled shoulder protested as did his newly punctured side.

Re-lax. Or you'll be dead.

And he had a few choice words for Ma'am before that happened. With a bit of luck he'd lose consciousness before impact but since he'd been beaten, shot (twice) and failed to retrieve the list it wasn't looking to be his day.

Deep breath. Relax.

When impact did come, and it hurt like the dickens he knew it would, her words were still ricocheting in his head.

Take the bloody shot! 

He'd had his hands on the data hanging tantalisingly from his opposite's neck. He could have broken the chain, strangled the man into unconsciousness or even snapped his blasted neck. Granted none of those options was easily accomplished while trading blows with a highly trained operative on top of a speeding train, and the tunnels hadn't helped either. But he could have done it, of that Bond was confident.

His boss hadn't trusted him to do his job. Had that betrayal pricked M's conscience at all? He damn well hoped so.

When next he saw her, he was going to give her a piece of his mind, preferably with a glass of her best single malt in hand. Provided that is he didn't bleed, freeze or get pummelled to death on a river bed first. Was the water really this icy, or was his body going into shock the reason he felt suddenly oh so very cold.

The pull of the current seemed to increase as he was swept along. Waterfall perhaps? Lovely. Bond could only hope there weren't any rocks on the way down.

What would his obituary say? How might M describe Commander James Bond, at the last? She'd always had a soft spot for him, that much he knew, even if she was willing to sacrifice him for the cause.

As his world faded to black, as he sank deeper into the cold depths of his watery tomb, 007 hoped that whatever she did eventually type up, it would at least give her trouble.


	2. What do you say about a man like that?

She'd waited expectantly for days after the incident for someone to make contact. For word from the hospital treating him or the morgue holding his body. For Bond himself to call, irate, demanding answers regarding her decision to call the shot. For him to saunter into her office, none the worse for wear, with a smirk that ridiculed her worry. She'd slap it right off his face if he did that of course, but it hadn't happened.

And yet without remains, without irrefutable proof of death, she still entertained a small hope that 007 might return. How dare he not? How dare he get himself killed in action?! The blatant bloody cheek of it! She ought to write him up for insubordination.

A week had passed, no body had been recovered and there seemed little hope of him ever being found. Washed out to sea was the likely reason. With a heavy heart M ordered the search called off.

She was able to delegate the job of overseeing the clearance and subsequent sale of his flat. That unenviable task of writing him a fitting send off was her responsibility. And the only avenue open to her now to help assuage her guilt.

God she hated this.

Had the call been premature? M questioned the choice daily. Perhaps it was, but officially she had to stand by her decision. It had been imperative that the list didn't get out into the open. It wasn't her fault Eve Moneypenny wasn't quite the crack shot in the field that her file suggested.

She'd been staring at her infernal computer screen for what seemed like hours. Maybe it had even been that long.

What do you say about a man like that? she'd asked. Right now M didn't know.

The usual things were covered. Orphaned son of a Scottish father and Swiss mother, educated at Eton and later Geneva University before joining the Royal Navy. Those facts were easy. It was the rest that troubled her.

What tone should she take? How should she paint him in death? Hero or martyr? He was probably looking down on her right now - or possibly looking up? - laughing at her struggle. Bastard.

She smoothed her fingers over the keyboard and stared straight ahead. Ronson's obituary hadn't caused her any bother. She knew from too long experience what to say following the death of an agent. Grief had no place in her line of work and the mere fact that she was feeling it now angered her.

But then Bond had always been different. He'd been a thorn in her emotional side for years, try as she might to prevent it.

M took a drink from her glass and replaced it carefully on the condensation ring on her desk. Then she inhaled deeply and let her eyes fall shut, trying to visualise the object of her torment.

A dancing blue gaze stared back, mocking her.

Damn it.

He'd never given her this much trouble in life, and he'd certainly dished out his fair share.

She was fond of him. She cared too much. That was the problem. Simple, and yet it complicated things immeasurably. She had no right to feel more for any one agent than another, and exactly what it was about 007 she couldn't pinpoint. It was amateurish and unprofessional but it was fact. Undeniably. Curse him for worming his way into her heart.

Well she just wouldn't let him beat her at this game. M pulled herself together. She'd write something, the best she could, and it would have to do. She couldn't put it off any longer. It wasn't as if Bond would ever read it anyway, so what did it matter if he'd hate it.

But of course matter it did.

More than 4 hours later M finally shut down her computer. Her back ached, her strained eyes were burning but through dogged determination she'd accomplished what she'd set out to do. Bond would have loathed it, of that she had no doubt, but the rest of the world would respect him for the top class agent he had been.

007

It appeared online in the Daily Telegraph twelve days after his supposed demise. He was recovering nicely in a quiet corner of Greece, dredged from the Aegean by a passing fishing boat and ferried to safety. He'd made no decision on when or whether to return to the fold. Now Bond didn't need to. The proof of his death was there on the screen for all who cared to see it.

He'd expected it, which is why he'd taken the trouble to look, but seeing his own obituary in print still left him feeling oddly uncomfortable.

He skimmed the first lines quickly. Commander James Bond. Senior officer in the MoD, missing believed killed in action.

That was code for she still hoped 007 would be recovered alive.

Well Bond wasn't feeling overly charitable towards M just now. The wound gradually mending in his side that still pulled painfully whenever he moved was reminder enough of her misdeeds. He'd let her hope, for a while longer.

He read the rest of her words more slowly, carefully. M cared beyond what she should. He'd always known it and the evidence was plain to see, right there in front of him. The piece was maudlin in places, overly sentimental in others, praising his worth and value, mourning his great loss to the Service.

Maybe it was the drugs he was taking, maybe it was something else, but Bond was left feeling ever so slightly nauseous by the end of it. He leaned over for the water glass on his bedside table, ignoring the pull of his stitches, and took a large gulp.

It was hardly M's best work. He'd never known her to be so given to mawkishness and hyperbole and he'd read a good many of her obituaries over the years. It was a hazard of the job.

He scanned the article once more, temporarily putting aside his anger towards her and trying to soften his opinion.

She'd described him as a hero (dismal), commended his selfless sacrifice for Queen and Country (ghastly) and his ability to get a job done. Well that was just plain ironic.

She'd even called him an exemplar of British fortitude. Outrageous!

The slightest of wry smiles tugged at Bond's lips. And maybe not so bad after all.


	3. It's a long way to Tobermory

"I'm afraid we need to stop."

What, again? It had only been a couple of hours since the last time. Apparently she'd been at a ministerial enquiry slash tea party while he was dodging tube trains. James Bond huffed a sigh.

"All right fine. Just pull over and I'll squat behind the nearest gorse bush!"

He was sorely tempted, just to spite her. Instead he indicated left for the services exit that was approaching and took the slip road. "That won't be necessary."

At this rate Silva, who didn't even know where they were headed, was going to get there first.

"Bond, in 20 years when your prostate's the size of a Victoria plum and pressing on your bladder at every turn, then we'll talk." The last M had the office's en suite facilities installed for that exact problem, for which current incumbent had always been grateful. For no other reason than she didn't have to share the ladies'.

"M, in 20 years we'll both be dead," he pointed out dryly.

"Speak for yourself."

He pulled into the parking lot and found a space.

"Earn your keep while I'm gone and get us some food." Being interrogated by bureaucrats, then shot at and hunted was hungry work. "I'm famished."

"Yes Ma'am."

M sighed as she opened the car door. "Don't Ma'am me Bond, not now. I won't stand for it."

"Yes Ma'am."

The teasing note in his voice made M smile in spite of herself. Just maybe this wouldn't all end in tears.

"Starbucks or MacDonalds?" he asked casually as he shut the driver's side door.

"Christ, the Americans really are taking over the world!"

Bond knew her well enough not to wait for more of an answer than that.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once stocked up with food, a full tank of petrol and whatever other supplies they deemed of potential use, the pair were back underway.

He'd retrieved an old navy blue tartan blanket from the boot of the car and M was dozing peacefully in the passenger seat beneath it.

How could this ever end well, he wondered as he glanced over at her. The flash of headlights from the opposite carriageway cast ever moving shadows across her sleep-softened face.

It was M's decision for them to go it alone, to sacrifice no more agents and risk only themselves. But Bond didn't want to be made to feel that weight of responsibility that came with knowing you'd fucked it up. What she must have felt when he'd been missing, presumed dead for the last three months.

What would happen when they were eventually found? When Silva caught up with them again, likely with an army of thugs in tow, to exact his revenge upon M?

He'd do his damnedest to prevent that, James just hoped he was the man for the job.

It was a hair-brained scheme to put it mildly, whisking her away from civilisation, away from the protection MI6 could provide, to an all but deserted valley in the Scottish Highlands. He may know the lie of the land and the house, the secret passage that lead to the chapel, but he also knew they'd be at a distinct disadvantage. Outnumbered and outgunned. He was one man trying protect an old woman from who knew what sort of strike force.

Quite why Bond had thought of this as an acceptable plan he was having a hard time remembering.

His took another sip of lukewarm coffee from its cardboard cup and wedged it back between his knees. He really did love this car but she was sadly lacking in a few of the basics with which the more modern ones from Q Branch came equipped.

What she did have was weapons. He took another quick mental inventory of what he had at his disposal, hoping he'd forgotten something. Besides the car, that amounted to one small firearm, a couple of spare clips and himself. Hardly the arsenal they were probably going to need. If the gun room wasn't still fully loaded they'd be in serious trouble.

"Bond."

"Hmmm?" She was awake. "Sorry. Miles away. Do I need to stop again?"

"Yes, but not for me." She gestured with raised eyebrows and a nod to the windscreen. "She's smoking."

Blast! Now that he looked, the temperature gauge on the dashboard was reading dangerously high. Hundreds of miles of motorway at high speed was disagreeing with his baby.

He pulled over to the hard shoulder, opened the Aston's bonnet and let the cold night air caress the engine.

M wound down her window and stuck her head out. "Is it serious?"

"Nothing a bit of time and drink of water won't fix."

He stood, arms folded leaning against the car, lost in thought. A few minutes later M got out and joined him, stretching out her cramped limbs and trying to ease the crick in her neck. What she wouldn't give for her own bed right now! She had to remind herself that 007 too had been thrown about a fair bit recently, not to mention taking a knife to his own chest just days before. That had to be biting still.

"Oh look, there's a gorse bush." She pointed into the darkness. A smile crinkled the corners of Bond's eyes.

"You're worried," she said quietly.

"She'll be fine." He said it with a conviction he didn't feel.

"I didn't mean about the car."

"What makes you think I did?" They held one another's gaze for a few moments, before M looked away and pulled her coat more tightly around her.

With her shoulder against his arm she could feel the heat radiating from him but it did little to warm her. She shivered involuntarily.

"It's cold. You should get back in."

M nodded. "You shouldn't worry Bond. You always manage to muddle through in the end." It was hardly a compliment but it was what remained unspoken that seemed to hang heavy in the night air. She seemed sure enough of his fate, but what about her own?

"Perhaps we should just stay here?" she called from the passenger seat. "A camp site on the side of the road seems as good a hiding place as any." He didn't respond, just kept staring out into the night.

"Is it safe to turn the radio on? I should hate to be dissolved in a shower of acid."

"I think Classic FM's around 100," he offered quietly.

"Next you'll have me pegged for bed with a cup of Horlicks by 7:30. Just because I qualify for a free bus pass, Bond, doesn't mean I want to be listening old people's music."

"My mistake. Radio 1's at 98."

"Don't be smart." She fiddled with the dial trying to find something more than just static before giving up.

"It's not digital. Sorry."

"Don't be." But she could have done with the distraction. M glanced at her watch. 12:42am. It had been a long, trying day and they had an even longer night still ahead of them. God, could she use a drink right now. She imagined Bond could as well.

Some twenty minutes, a bottle of Evian for the radiator and an argument over who should drive later they were back underway at a somewhat reduced speed. This time M was behind the wheel.

"Get some sleep 007. That's an order. You'll be of no use to me if you don't."

"Yes Ma'am." At that she flicked open the top of the gear lever and hovered her thumb over the red eject button.

He smiled and obediently closed his eyes.

M suppressed the urge to reach over and tug the blanket a little higher up over his chest. She'd be smoothing his hair and stroking his cheek next if she wasn't careful.

Mallory was right. She was sentimental about him.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The grey light of day had brought them into Scotland.

Bond stood in the glen, a stream meandering gently through it. The ground rising on either side was draped in a mist that crawled slowly down the slopes. He wondered when these hills had last seen the sun. It was damp here, and cold, the kind of weather that seeped into your bones and never really left you.

He ran his hand down his face, the rasp of day-old stubble rough against his palm. It was just as he remembered it. Grim.

M got out of the car and came to stand beside him, pushing her hands deep in her coat pockets. They stood together for a few moments, both lost in their own unpleasant thoughts. What today would bring, they could only guess at.

"Is this where you grew up?" she asked looking out across the untamed landscape.

"Mmmm."

He volunteered nothing more. After a pause she continued.

"How old were you when they died?"

He didn't turn to face her simply replying softly, "You know the answer to that." Of course she did, but she was hoping to draw it from him, maybe help to heal old wounds. She'd accused him years earlier of being emotionally detached but she knew it wasn't always true. "You know the whole story."

Remind me, James, she willed him silently.

"A storm's coming."

The subject was closed. He cast her a brief glance before turning and heading back to the car.

He would weather that storm, M was sure of it. She wouldn't have put her fate into anyone else's hands more willingly than Bond's.

And never mind that he'd failed all his tests.


	4. And that bloody thing survived

The day they read her will, Eve Moneypenny found him up on the rooftop looking out across the city of London. The Union flag flying a few buildings over ought to have been at half mast, James thought bitterly, for all she had done for her country. But M hadn't been a public figure. The legacy of her work at MI6 would remain widely unknown.

"She left you this," said Eve, holding out the dark grey box to him.

Bond hadn't expected a bequest from M and he took it with no small amount of surprise. He doubted any of her other agents had been so singled out and the gesture left him feeling both bemused and oddly touched. While he was in no danger of crying - he'd shed his tears for her in private - grief unexpectedly tightened his throat. He swallowed hard to ease its grip.

His gloved hand paused on the lid for a moment before he lifted it to reveal the box's contents. Then he understood.

She'd known full well his hatred of the Royal Doulton figure, and she'd cared enough to needle him with it just a little from beyond the grave. Bond smiled.

"Perhaps it was her way of telling you to take a desk job?" suggested Eve.

He shook his head. "Just the opposite."

M, with her posthumous GCMG and her full honours, was still calling the shots. Everyone in government knew the old joke about what those post-nominal letters stood for: 'God Calls Me God'. Bond didn't have to try hard to imagine that.

It made him feel better than he had done in days.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He took his inheritance home that night, to his new Chelsea flat with its boxes full of his pre-'death' effects. He hadn't had a chance to unpack anything yet. Or decorate. The place was the proverbial blank canvas, all magnolia walls and beige carpets. It was a boring strategy really, to help the seller achieve his exorbitant asking price, and never mind if it was effective. Bond was fairly itching to get the paint out.

He put the box down on top of another marked 'books' and removed the lid. The bulldog rested there impassively like a fat toad. It looked as grumpy as he sometimes felt, carrying the weight of England on its back.

James poured himself a drink, then lifted it from its box and eyed it critically. Her office had been blown to smithereens killing 8 in the process and there wasn't a scratch on it. How was that even possible?

He clinked his heavy glass roughly against the dog's nose in a toast to M. The glaze remained resolutely unchipped. Damned English craftsmanship. He took a large gulp of Scotch. What the hell was he going to do with this bloody thing?

It wasn't like the unwanted Christmas present you could surreptitiously pass on for someone else's birthday. He also doubted he'd be able to donate it to a charity shop or flog it at auction. If he could he'd take the proceeds from whoever was daft enough to spend money on such an awful object and buy himself a few drinks.

What would M say, he wondered? Probably something along the lines of 'Well if you don't want it 007, then don't feel obliged to keep it'. But it was what went unsaid, rather than the seemingly uncaring, annoyingly matter-of-fact words themselves, that he couldn't navigate his way around. She may be dead, but somehow this still felt strangely like emotional blackmail.

Maybe if he sat the animal precariously on the mantlepiece the cleaner would manage to accidentally knock it to the floor. Then it wouldn't be his fault it was broken and he needn't feel guilty about throwing it away.

James put it out for the night with the intention of letting her do exactly that, but next morning it went back in the box. Seeing it there was just too ugly a reminder of what he'd lost. (He suspected, as well, that if it did take a tumble it would probably just bounce and be none the worse for wear.)

He stowed it at the bottom of his suit cupboard, between his best black dress shoes and a pair of old Reebok trainers. It seemed as good a place as any for a ceramic dog, and he managed subsequently to take no notice of it when picking out his footwear.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One night months later he had it foisted back onto him.

After being cleared by medical to leave with the souvenir gunshot wound and broken ribs from his most recent mission, Eve had driven him home. She'd helped him inside to the bedroom and deposited him without ceremony on the bed. While Bond fought his way out of his clothes, she rummaged through his cupboards looking for an extra blanket. Instead, she came back out holding the box.

She put the mutt on his bedside table amongst his collection of pills, patted James on the cheek and stated, "Everyone needs a friend when they're sick." Then she left.

Bond just stared at the dog through his medicated haze.

First of all he wasn't sick, just wounded, and secondly, that lump of pottery was not his friend. But since he was too exhausted to drag himself close enough to reach the thing, it had to stay where it was.

The following morning he removed it from the bedside table - he'd never be able to sleep like that without chemical aid - and put it back in its kennel. But before he could replace the lid he found himself staring pityingly at the creature. He didn't especially want it on display but he felt he shouldn't leave it boxed up anymore either. Damn meds must be making him soft.

There was no way it could stay next to his bed, that was for sure, so he moved it to the dining table. But it ruined his meals staring at him.

He tried the corner of the bath next, then the windowsill in the loo behind the net curtains. Neither option proved particularly appealing.

He considered using it as a doorstop. It certainly looked the part for the job. But since nothing in his flat ever banged shut, even with the windows open wide, the only upshot of that idea would be an unfriendly nudge of his boot whenever he walked past.

For a while the dog found a home on the bookshelf in the spare room snuggled between his Fleming and his Forsyth. Eventually however it returned to its original vantage point above the living room fireplace. James wasn't in there much anyway, so what did it matter.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later, when he found himself pushing it closer to the wall whenever the cleaner was expected and being just a tiny bit relieved to see Jack still in one piece on his return home, Bond realised something had changed. His feelings for the beast had softened, like his grief had for her.

Their situation seemed to parallel the way his and M's own relationship had evolved. In the beginning she'd found him arrogant and reckless, an upstart loose cannon potentially too dangerous to be ignited. She'd called him a blunt instrument, a misogynist dinosaur, a relic - and a few other less flattering things besides. The negative sentiment had been mutual.

By the end, they had a trust and respect for one another that went beyond the outstanding ability of each to perform their jobs.

His own feelings for Jack somehow mirrored that evolution.

He'd considered a few other names for the pooch before deciding to settle on what the manufacturers had called him. Pat the Dog was tempting, but no. Churchill - oh yes! - was too prosaic. George didn't seem to fit. Neither did Fred. Or Harriet. In the end, Jack remained Jack.

By the 1st anniversary of M's death Bond had grown rather fond of the ornament. He'd never have imagined he could become sentimental about an inanimate object, aside from his beautiful, tragic car of course, God rest her. Now the dog even joined his master in front of the television when he was home of an evening.

Which was where they were tonight.

James could have been out doing any number of things. Dancing at a club with a beautiful stranger. Sitting in a darkened movie theatre. Shagging double-D-34 from accounting who fluttered her lashes and pushed her ample chest forward whenever he was in the vicinity.

Instead he was home alone this Saturday night watching other people dance. The remote control lay abandoned on the arm of the chair. He'd heard the assertion plenty of times before, he'd just never really believed it until now. There actually was nothing on.

But that didn't matter and he wasn't really watching anyway. James wasn't looking for a distraction tonight. He was remembering the events of one year ago.

Remembering Skyfall.

Remembering her.

The grief was gone now. Time really did heal wounds. He could think of her fondly - as both his boss and his friend - and it no longer hurt to do so.

He leaned over and touched his glass against Jack's nose in a toast, only rather more gently now than he had done before.

To M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of GCMG standing for 'God Calls Me God' comes from the old British comedy series 'Yes, Minister'.


End file.
